


The Final Mark

by alone_and_sublime



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Canon-Typical Beholding Powers, Drunk Jon, Elias Does “Damage Control”, Jon Has a Statement, M/M, Non-Consensual Touching, Possessive Elias, s4 spoilers, takes place in s3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-19 12:08:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22710598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alone_and_sublime/pseuds/alone_and_sublime
Summary: “I did something terrible to that man didn’t I,” Jon says weakly from the toilet bowl.Elias looks down at him. Considering.“No, Jon. You did what’s in your nature.”Jon shudders and is sick again.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 10
Kudos: 220





	The Final Mark

It would appear that the head of the Magnus Institute was hard at work, pouring over important documents such as Annual Artifact Storage Inventory or maybe Dress Code Implementation Procedure, but his attention was somewhere else entirely. Not that the complaints towards the archival assistants work attire wasn’t of interest to him, he felt a distant amusement in imagining what new way Melanie would try to dispose of him, after he insisted she wore something more professional than worn out shorts and patchy bomber jackets to work.

Elias had his sight turned towards the office of the Head Archivist, many rooms away. Jon is getting ready to leave for the night, several hours after the average institute employee would have gone. He is attempting to take his final mug of lukewarm tea to the break room when Basira intercepts him. She offers the now predictable condolences for Jon’s recent abduction by Nikola, and briefly catches him up on her reading in the archives during his absence. Elias can’t help but admire her detached, up front attitude, but worries how her potential friendship could influence Jon away from more... pressing matters.

There is a pregnant silence between the two as it’s clear how uncomfortable Jon is with the socialization before Basira suddenly suggests they go out for drinks. Elias can’t help but chuckle at that as he shuffles some paper across his desk. He thought Basira had more sense than to make an offer that everyone in the archives knows Jon would decline. Elias begins to turn his sight to other pressing matters when Jon’s response makes him pause.

Jon awkwardly rubs his hand at the back of his neck before sighing and saying, “Yeah. Yeah, I think a drink sounds good right now.” He gives Basira a tired smile then tells her to meet him at the entrance after he’s cleaned up.

Even with no one around to see him but the ever present Eye, Elias raises an eyebrow in disbelief. He assumed with Jon’s naturally... _abrasive_ personality, and the years of Elias nurturing distrust between him and his assistants, the invitation wouldn’t even be considered. Then again, a month with only the madness of the Stranger to keep Jon company was probably too long, even for him. Elias jots _Consult Lucas on employee training_ onto a notepad before getting up to gather his things as well. He can continue to watch Jon and Basira just as well from the comfort of his home.

-

Jon is _drunk_. He and Basira spent two hours at the pub, swapping stories from their uni days, previous jobs, unfortunate exes and carefully avoiding any potentially... spooky subjects. Elias enjoys seeing him like this, in real time, rather than the glimpses he’d stolen into Jon’s past. Jon’s usually tense posture has been relaxed by the alcohol and he even let out the occasional chuckle at Basira’s anecdotes.

Elias can tell Jon enjoys being drunk too. In his twenties Jon would drink to excess just to feel the relief of all his worries melting away. He liked the feeling of not being in complete control of himself, he liked the illusion of not being responsible for his actions. No wonder the Web sunk it’s threads into the man at such a young age. He wants to explore this idea more, imagining how Jon would squirm as he read his deepest desires aloud like an excerpt from a book, but pushes aside the distraction when Jon and Basira exit the bar.

“You alright? Want me to call a cab for you?” Basira asks.

Jon shakes his head and waves her off, “No. No, I’m going to have a cigarette first. Thanks.”

Basira raises an eyebrow at him and he laughs. “I’ll call a cab afterwards, I’m fine.”

“Alright. See you tomorrow Jon.” And she leaves.

Jon pulls a half crushed pack of cigarettes out of his coat, puts one between his lips and feels around his other pockets for his web engraved lighter. Rain begins drumming against the bar awning as Jon realizes that he must have left it at work. He looks up and down the nearly deserted street and spots a figure under an umbrella half a block down. Elias rolls his eyes as Jon leaves the cover of the awning and jogs towards the figure.

Stupid, Elias thinks. Surely if Jon were sober he would have thought to just go back into the bar to ask for a light. Lord knows most of them smoke anyway. Elias wishes Jon would at least give up this nasty habit, but can’t deny it has helped him out in the past. If Jon didn’t smoke he probably wouldn’t have had the time to take care of that annoyance, Leitner.

Jon catches up to the figure with the umbrella, a tall white man in his late 30s, just as he passes an alleyway. 

“Excuse me! Any chance you have a light?”

The man turns around and says yes, pulling a lighter out of his pocket and motioning for Jon join him under the umbrella. As the man holds out the flame Jon can’t help but laugh and shake his head.

“What’s funny?”

“The first one I ever recorded.” Jon is still chuckling as his cigarette is lit. “The angler fish would have got _you_ for sure.”

The man looks puzzled and pulls away slightly. “You alright mate? Sounds like you’ve had too much.”

Elias catches his breath as he begins to feel _something_ swelling within Jon. He had been sitting at home in his leather armchair with an untouched glass of scotch, considering just going to bed when the look in Jon’s eyes made him stop. Elias slid to the edge of his seat, elbows resting on his knees and hands clasped in front of his mouth. The full focus of his Sight pinpointed on Jon and the stranger.

Jon blows his smoke away from the man, looks back to him, then looks through him. There is a hunger in his eyes that wasn’t there before.

“You have a statement of your own, don’t you, Alex?”

The man stammers and takes a step back. Before he can run Jon follows him with a step forward, face inches away from the mans, and looks into his eyes with an intensity neither of them had ever experienced before.

“What happened to your friend, Alex? _Tell me everything_.”

-

“ _Fuck_.”

Elias surges out of his chair and grabs his keys. Jon isn’t ready to use this power yet, there is still too much humanity left in him. He had so carefully paced out the Archivists growing dependency on statements... but at this point Jon was more likely to reject this new aspect of his power entirely, not prepared to knowingly sacrifice the safety and sanity of innocent people. This could undo years of planning.

Elias looks at his untouched glass of scotch, then grabs the whole bottle before bolting to the door. He doesn’t even bother to do up his vest or unroll his shirtsleeves, just grabs his overcoat and heads out to his car.

-

When Elias reaches Jon he is on his second cigarette, staring down at the shuddering, catatonic man on the sidewalk in front him. The stranger’s umbrella is abandoned on the ground and both of the men’s clothes are soaked through by the steady rain. Jon is frowning slightly, as if he is trying to remember something through his drunken haze. Elias looks into his mind to find confusion. He is calm and satiated, for the first time in so long, but has the feeling he did something wrong. _What did he do wrong?_

“Come here Jon, I’m taking you home.”

Jon doesn’t react for a moment, then looks around to see Elias calling to him from the car. He is swaying slightly and doesn’t seem to notice as his unfinished cigarette slips from between his fingers.

His frown deepens and he mutters, “oh no, not _you_.”

Elias tries not to roll his eyes and leaves the engine running as he gets out of the car. He crosses to the sidewalk, stepping over Jon’s victim and grabs him by the arm.

“Come along Jon. It’s late, you’re wet, and I really have better things to be doing with my time than this.” Jon makes several offended noises that stir something within Elias, something that might only be amusement in any other situation, but Jon doesn’t have the strength or coordination to resist as Elias pulls him to the car. He deposits Jon into the passenger side and puts his overcoat over Jon’s rain soaked legs. As Elias gets into the drivers seat Jon huffs and dumps the coat onto the car floor.

_May the Beholding give me patience to deal with this petulant little man_ , Elias thinks as he pulls away from the curb and the traumatized bystander.

Jon stares ahead through the windshield and his rain splattered glasses as his breath begins to quicken.

“Oh. Oh god. I think- I think I did something terrible,” he stammers out as his hands begin to shake. “H- he sounded so terrified. And I didn’t stop- didn’t want to.... What did I _do_?”

Elias ignores the question easily enough, especially without any power laced through it. He suspected this is how Jon would react; he wasn’t emotionally prepared to know how deeply his power could affect a person. And it didn’t help that in his altered state he couldn’t control how intensely his victim would experience the relived trauma. It was all just too soon.

Elias leans over and retrieves the bottle of scotch from the glove compartment. He presses it into Jon’s hand, not looking away from the road. “Drink this. It will help.”

Jon doesn’t even consider what’s in the bottle before taking several long gulps. He sputters and coughs, but at least is intoxicated enough to be oblivious to the worst of the burning. Elias thinks about Jon’s history of overindulging at school, how much he has had already, and how likely he is to remember any of this in the morning.

“Good job Jon. Now take two more drinks for me.” Better safe than sorry.

Jon mutters a slurred shut up, but takes two more gulps anyway. They drive for several more minutes, silent except for the sound of rain against the windshield. Elias watches the cloudy thoughts swirl around Jon’s head, still trying to comprehend what he had done to that man with the umbrella.

Finally Elias parks in front of Jon’s building and attempts to help him out of the car. Jon pushes his hands away, but staggers and nearly falls before even reaching the main doors. Elias ignores his protests and puts an arm around his too-thin waist to steady him. It’s awkward, with Jon being a head shorter than Elias, and his back is aching by the time they reach the door of Jon’s new flat. At the door Jon mumbles, wondering where he put his keys and Elias deftly reaches around to pull them out of the front left pocket of the man’s trousers. He just needs to get Jon to bed then he can go home.

-

Minutes later Elias is holding Jon’s overgrown hair out of the way as he is bent over the toilet. They had made it as far as the hallway before Jon promptly dropped his coat to the floor and announced that he was going to be sick. Elias would not have thought this is how he would be spending the rest of his night when he had first watched Jon and Basira chatting in the office, but he supposed this was preferable to losing the years of progress he had made with the new Archivist.

Elias is perched on the edge of the bathtub, one hand holding Jon’s mess of hair and the other on his sweat damp, trembling back. He looks around at Jon’s toiletries with disappointment. All that hair and he uses a cheap two-in-one shampoo/conditioner, and no wonder the man shaves so irregularly if that’s the razor he’s using... he wonders if Jon would use any better quality grooming products that he could supply, or if he would just toss them in the bin out of spite. His attention is eventually brought back to Jon himself by a low moan and a pause in his retching.

“I did something terrible to that man didn’t I,” Jon says weakly from the toilet bowl.

Elias looks down at him. Considering.

“No, Jon. You did what’s in your nature.”

Jon shudders and is sick again.

-

It is past two in the morning by the time he gets Jon into bed. He quickly undresses the unconscious man, but can’t help running his hands over Jon’s many prominent scars as he goes. The Corruption, The Spiral, The Hunt, The Desolation. He wonders how many more entities will make such beautiful marks on his Archivist before he is complete.

Down to his underwear, it is painfully obvious how much weight Jon had lost in the last year. On his back his stomach is concave, his ribs and hip bones jutting out, thin arms and legs no longer hidden by several layers of clothing. Elias knows he hasn’t been starving himself of food, though Jon has been known to forget the occasional meal, but has been starving in the _metaphysical_ sense. Jon might still have too much humanity to tolerate “feeding” on innocents, but it is clear he cannot be sustained by second hand statements much longer.

He hooks a finger under the waistband of Jon’s briefs and thinks about how easy it would be to slip his whole hand in without even stretching the elastic. He has every right to, he practically made Jon who he is today. This body belonged to him. The Web may have touched his archivist first, but Elias had orchestrated every encounter since then and he would be the last, the _final_ mark.

Elias slides his finger along Jon’s waistband, from one stark hip bone to the other. He could dig his nails into the tender flesh between them. Sink his teeth into one of those prominent clavicles. Grasp and grab at Jon until his entire body was bracketed by possessive bruises... how _predatory_.

Elias wishes he could blame all this on his proximity to Daisy- to The Hunt over the last year but, unlike Jon, he knows who holds accountability here. He chose Jon. He wanted to see the man unravel. Witnessing Jon’s resigned decent into madness stirred a feeling in his gut that was nothing short of euphoric.

He imagines Jon looking upon the fear enveloped world that he and Elias would create together. He imagines only then returning the memories of this night to Jon. Make Jon relive extracting trauma from that unfortunate bystander, grudgingly accept the alcohol from Elias because even subconsciously he knew he didn’t want to remember it either. Elias would return all that to Jon and then make sure he _knew_ to what extent he was at Elias’ mercy.

Elias pulls his hand away, and looks at Jon’s sleeping expression, still tense and fearful even in his dreams. He leans forward, lips nearly touching Jon’s temple... then frowns. What is it about the Archivist, his Archivist, that made him so possessive. Impulsive. Even his dear Mr. Bennet had not caused such an extreme reaction in him. But then again, he never completely let Barnabas go either, did he?

Elias slowly straightens and pulls the worn wool blanket from Jon’s bed to cover his body. His glorious body. A monument to fear. Jon continues to sleep fitfully as Elias carefully brushes graying hair away from his face before leaving the room. The man carefully retraces his steps through the apartment, making sure there will be no evidence of his presence here. Jon isn’t the most aware when it comes to his surroundings, but once again, better safe than sorry.

Elias pauses at the door to roll his shirtsleeves back down and neatly don his overcoat. His eyes roam over the threadbare couch, still unpacked cardboard boxes, shabby coat discarded on the floor. He quietly exits and shuts the door, pulling his own copy of Jon’s apartment key out to lock it behind him.

-

The next day Jon staggers into the office to be met with worried objections from Martin.

“Jon you look terrible! What happened? Were you attacked again?”

Basira laughs and brushes Martin aside. “Nah. Just hungover as all hell.”

She turns to Jon and says, with as much concern as her casual monotone can muster, “you alright though, Jon? I wouldn’t have left you if I knew it was this bad.”

Jon shakes his head, immediately wincing from the motion, and sighs. “Don’t worry about it Basira. I didn’t think I had had that much either... must have blacked out sometime after leaving the bar.”

He offers her a weak smile and a self deprecating chuckle, “made it home safely though. Thank you- for looking out.”

After reassuring Martin once more that he was fine, he sheepishly accepts a fresh mug of mint tea then makes his way to his office.

Once outside the door he pauses, the unsettling feeling of being watched raising the hairs at the back of his neck. Down the hall Elias stands next to his own office door, staring right back at Jon. The eye contact unsettles Jon. It always has with Elias. But today seemed different. The usual impenetrable expression on his bosses face was replaced with something more... triumphant.

Jon breaks contact and quickly shuts his office door behind him. He braces his back against the door for a moment and clutches the hot mug of tea to his chest, trying to will away the skin crawling feeling. Finally, Jon convinces himself it all must just be the hangover and makes his way to his desk. There is a statement in a manilla file folder already prepared for him and he hears a tape recorder click on.

And so his work begins.

Down the hall Elias smiles and closes his eyes as the statement washes over him. Jon’s small, tired voice strengthens as he reads on, sounding like a man possessed. As he relives the horrors written before him, terror slowly creeps into his voice. But he cannot stop. And although he will not admit it to himself, Jon does not want to stop.

Perfect.

_Simply perfect._

**Author's Note:**

> I have never written a fan fiction before. In fact I had no idea how to write. I was completely illiterate, stumbling through the world, wondering “damn what if Jon got drunk and used his compelling powers much earlier and then Elias shows up to do damage control like a goddamn menace?” 
> 
> Anyway, happy Valentine’s Day Z, I made you this extremely questionable Jon/Elias fic.


End file.
